Photographer and photo educator Doug Gordon breaks down a bridal portrait session in this 12+ minute video. He explains how he dials in different intensities from his lights directly from his camera with the PocketWizard FlexTT5, MiniTT1, and the AC3 ZoneController.
Gordon’s premise is to have his system as stripped down and foolproof as possible. Stressing the total lighting control he can achieve from behind the camera, Gordon shows how different lighting setups work with slightly different bridal poses to achieve astonishingly different portraits.
Scott Kelby is offering a new show on KelbyTV dubbed Photography Tips & Tricks and it’s off to a fantastic, and mighty informative, start.
This first episode “features Scott Kelby, RC Concepcion, and special guest Bill Fortney sharing tips on using Auto ISO, bracketing, and setting up a remote camera in places to which you don’t have access.”
Cy Cyr is an Orlando based photographer who specializes in commercial and editorial portrait work. Golf Digest came to him when they wanted to create a humorous photo slideshow illustrating some all-too-familiar (for all you golfers out there) bad behavior on the course.
We tackled a list of 22 shot ideas generated by Golf Digest staff members and myself. The shoot lasted about ten hours, and my PocketWizard Plus® III radio triggers were there for everything. I was running Profoto Pro-7B’s with beauty dishes because of the portability, endurance, and consistency.
The popular photography blog FStoppers recently featured a behind the scenes video by CEB Imagery photographer C. Edward Brice of a dance powder shoot.
While many behind the scenes videos are merely “music videos of the photographer shooting,” CEB Imagery’s video includes a large amount of detailed and technical info on the shoot and doesn’t shy away from showing mistakes (and how to get past them).
The resulting images show a strong sense of movement and are somewhat ethereal in feeling. They were shot using three 580EX II’s and triggered by PocketWizard MiniTT1’s and FlexTT5’s.
A designer by trade, Ed McGowan picked up his studio’s DSLR in 2008 and has been hooked ever since. His delicately composed shots lie right at the intersection between design and photography. Below, his account of Viridian.
The idea for this portrait came the day before when some co-workers and I were exploring a little creek down the road. The creek itself was not too impressive, but I started to think of ways to disguise and transform it with the use of some clever photography. One of the ways was to use short DOF by shooting a wider aperture. The issue with shooting wide apertures is it tends to let in too much light. To counter this I used a ND filter. Since I knew we would be shooting in the later afternoon and the sun would be at the subjects back, I decided to use off-camera lighting to light the subject.
Our very own Ian Ray was on hand at Sports Shooter Academy IX this past April to help participating photographers get the most out of their PocketWizard radios. In this video, he shares three tips to help you maximize your radios’ performance for remote camera triggering.
Get on up. The ground can absorb a lot of your radio signal. If you’re using remote cameras that are placed directly on the field, consider mounting your PocketWizard higher up on a fence or pole.
Loooooong range. If you’re using a Plus® III or MultiMAX®, setting your radio trigger to long range mode can double your operating range.
Make contact. If you’re using a MultiMAX, you can extend the contact time (the time the trigger keeps the electrical contact closed) to allow your motor drive to run longer. Ian recommends using 0.3 seconds, depending on your camera.
Like these tips? Consider signing up for their next workshop!
Marko Saari is a freelance photographer from southern Finland whose imaginative and narrative-driven fashion work caught our eye. Read below for his account of his recent retro-futuristic shoot at a historic and unusual home. We present Marko Saari’s Futuro.
For this shoot, I was inspired by the Futuro plastic house, designed by architect Matti Suuronen. When it was announced that the house would be shown at a local museum as a special exhibition, I had the idea to create a colorful fashion shoot that would match the bright yellow house, using slightly muted 1960′s tones.
In this detailed review of the PocketWizard Plus III by Will Crockett, Will subjects the Plus III to some rigorous testing, and it comes away looking just fine.
In the video, Will takes the Plus III units to a place where many other radio triggers have failed—Chicago’s Lower Michigan Avenue. Not only is this a challenging urban environment, but it is right next to the Tribune News, WGN Radio, and two television stations. It would be tough to a location with more radio interference than that. To complicate matters, Will really spreads his strobes out, placing one 150 feet away. Despite his best efforts, Will experienced zero triggering failures out of the 268 shots he fired, leading him to say, “that tells me it works like a champ.”
Bryan Peterson has released another instructional video as part of his You Keep Shooting series for AdoramaTV.
The light at dusk can be beautifully soft and warm but in order to take a portrait in this kind of light, you’ll have to choose between a beautiful background and properly exposed subject. In this episode, Bryan demonstrates how to use flash to preserve the ambient light, while getting a well exposed subject.
He sets up his camera on a tripod and meters for the ambient light. Using a PocketWizard radio trigger, he holds his speedlight (warm gel attached), off to the side, and triggers his camera just as his model jumps into the frame.
Watch the video above and see more from the entire series. Information on Bryan’s school can be found here.
The talented and always-wonderful Moshe Zusman recently gave a lecture at B&H’s Event Space, demonstrating how to get perfect wedding shots, no matter what kind of lights you have or your location.
In order to get well-lit, white balanced subjects, Moshe recommends setting up a number of color-balancing gelled strobes that compliment the location’s lighting, high on light stands above the room. His assistants, he says, can set this up in six minutes.
